Hip hop music, for all it’s various forms and incarnations, always boils down to a deceptively simple ingredients. It is for this reason that much of it sounds blatantly derivative lately – there are too many people who have not studied the history (much less music on the whole), which causes hip hop to stagnate. But a corner is about to be turned – new artists are breathing life and vitality into the artform and taking it back to its captivating roots. Sage One is a producer/artist on the cusp of this new sound of hip hop.

Educated by the Large Professor and K-Cut of Main Source in the science of beat construction, Sage One began making beats over 14 years ago. What started as a love for rhyming developed into an expression through music, which was more comfortable for him. He had, by 1994, released 2 albums as an artist, but found the experience not as fulfilling as he had hoped. With the death of several family members in the following 2 years, music became not only his pri